We all just lived through a historic April here in Madison, and broadly across the region.
In Madison and Milwaukee, April 2026 was the wettest April since record keeping began in 1869 and 1871, respectively. Madison received 7.26 inches of rain during the month, more than half of that amount coming on just three days (1.34 inches on April 2, 1.53 inches on April 14 and 0.98 inch on April 17).
Rain fell on 22 of the 30 days of April in Madison, with measurable rain on 18 of those days. On two days we set new daily records for precipitation. The previous record for the month was 7.19 inches, set in 1909. Milwaukee shattered its old monthly record by 2.11 inches, as 9.49 inches of rain fell on the city this April, breaking the prior record set in 2013. As was the case in Madison, it rained on 22 of the 30 days, with 18 of them recording measurable rain — one was a daily record.
The extraordinary total featured six particularly rainy days, with nearly half of the monthly total coming on consecutive days from April 12 to April 17. Both cities also had relatively warm Aprils, as Madison came in 15th and Milwaukee ninth all-time for April warmth, that ddespite a record chilly end to the first week of the month.
The rainy, relatively warm April has put the spring greening well ahead of schedule in the southern part of the state. In fact, the regional spring leaf-out this year is running two to five weeks early, with southern Wisconsin on the high end of that range.
So, if you have been wondering if the trees look a bit ahead of schedule for the first week of May, your suspicion is correct. There really is some potency to those April showers.
Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at noon the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.
